May Day 2017 – All Power to the People: Rise Up, Resist, Unite

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We are at a moment a long time in the making: hundreds of years of escalating violence targeting the peoples whose labor and struggles form the very foundation of life as we know it have culminated in fascism seizing the world’s highest seat of power and unleashing an all-out assault upon us all.

Every day brings word of new outrages: mass deportations tearing apart undocumented families, indiscriminate travel bans targeting entire faiths, communities displaced and turned out into the streets to make way for the mega-rich, police gunning down children, women and queer and trans folks unsafe in their own neighborhoods, corporate-backed violence inflicted upon indigenous peoples protecting their ancestral lands and the resources every living thing on earth needs to survive, and militarized police and private security forces armed with terrifying weapons turned loose upon all those who resist. This is a time of shock and awe – a moment in which our collective future feels uncertain and the very future of life on this planet is at stake.

In these dark times, hope can feel impossible – but hope we must. The entire history of humanity and of worker-led movements in this country and every country on the planet shows that we can survive this. That we are all alive to fight today is undeniable proof that a people united and organized can overcome impossible odds. We are each the wildest dreams of ancestors who lived, fought, and died so we could be alive in this moment. Together, and only together, we have the power to win.

It isn’t fascism that has the power. It isn’t the imperialists, or the capitalists, or the colonizers, or the ruling class, or the bosses, or the landlords that have the power either. It’s us. The power of those who oppress us is an illusion that crumbles as soon as we rise up, unite, and fight. It is the dispossessed, oppressed, and marginalized masses of poor and working people who are the makers and shapers of history. We always have been. What happens next is up to us.

This year, as we face a rising fascism and a dying imperialism, the Portland May Day Coalition calls upon every worker, every renter, every artist, every immigrant, every student, every teacher, every parent, every child, every union, every organizer, and every progressive, radical, and revolutionary organization in the city of Portland to rise up, resist, and unite with us on May 1st.